The first thing I did was check the far side through the car window.
The Lizard Man was letting out a screech and shoving its upper body into the car. Rather than calling for support, it seemed to be trying to retrieve its weapon first.
Perhaps the car alarms still blaring from every direction had frustrated the bastard's call for support for the time being.
Unlike the Lizard Hound, a Lizard Man's vocal cords were not capable of cutting through car alarms.
FLING!
The instant I registered all of that, I opened the passenger door I had shut. The Lizard Man, which had crammed its body through the broken driver's-side window, went wide-eyed with its lidless eyes.
STOMP!
My foot stamped down on the spear that lay across the driver's and passenger seats. It was possible because the Lizard Man had only just grabbed the spear to pull it back.
CRACK!
The stomp with my full weight behind it succeeded in snapping the crude wooden spear. Even so, I had only stepped on it a quarter of the way along, so it would not mean much, but at least the sharpened point was gone.
SKRAAAAK!
It was not intended, but I also succeeded in scraping at the Lizard Man's temper along the way.
The Lizard Man vomited out a sound anyone could tell was furious and made the veins stand out on its neck.
SCRRRRK!
The Lizard Man, bracing on the car's window frame, pulled its body back while leaving claw marks in the frame. But because it retreated too hastily, the spear it held in its other hand caught on the window.
And as though its intelligence had dropped sharply under the force of its rage, the bastard fumbled several more times. It needed to lay the spear flat to pull it out, but it kept tilting the angle diagonally, so the spear's tip caught on the roof or caught on a seat.
Now was the time. I pushed my upper body into the car and grabbed the caught spear. As it happened, the Lizard Man was holding the spear with only one hand because the other was braced on the window frame.
I braced my body with one foot on a seat and pulled the spear with both hands. With that, the gap in muscle strength was filled.
My hands yanked the Lizard Man's spear.
SHAAAAAA!
But the Lizard Man's grip strength was truly formidable.
The bastard did not let go of the spear to the very end. Instead its whole upper body was dragged toward me.
The Lizard Man's body, which had only been inserted to about the chest, entered as far as the pelvis, and the hand that had braced the window frame joined in gripping the spear.
Both hands against both hands.
Like this I could not win. I let go of the spear without regret.
When the taut contest of strength snapped in an instant, the Lizard Man's upper body lurched. What's more, the Lizard Man was not bracing on anything like the window frame at present.
With its support gone, its upper body dropped down and flopped over onto the seat.
'Now.'
Letting go of the spear and bracing on the seat to fix its posture takes time as well. If I attacked now, no counterattack could come right away.
Whirl. The Swiss Army knife turned half a rotation naturally in my hand and was caught in a reverse grip, and I drove it straight down into the Lizard Man's head. What I aimed for was the space between its eyes.
But because the Lizard Man twisted its head away in a hurry, or because my hand trembled slightly under the strain, the point of impact changed.
Squelch. The short blade lodged in the Lizard Man's long snout.
SLASH!
Drag things out too long and you end up caught yourself.
Whatever the point of impact, the moment the sensation reached my hand I pulled my arm back. The knife lodged in the snout withdrew, splitting the hide of the snout as it went.
On top of that, the foot braced on the passenger seat kicked off the seat at the same timing as my body pulled out. My body came completely clear of the car.
SKRAAAAK!
Right after, the Lizard Man's arm slashed through empty air. If I had pulled out even a little later, those claws would have raked my foot or my arm instead of the air.
Of course, that was not the end.
The Lizard Man, which had come a little further into the car to attack me, finally reached as far as the passenger seat.
In other words, what was now hooked over the driver's-side window frame was its legs. And closer to the knees than to the hips at that!
SLAM!
I slammed the passenger door shut and then kicked off in a hurry. Force went into the hand braced on the windshield, and my legs and my whole body went over the hood the way you vault a gym horse.
Tap. My body reached the far side of the car in an instant. In my field of view lay the Lizard Man's defenseless lower body.
HISSS!!!
The monster, grasping the situation, thrashed its tail violently and tried to pull its body into the car. Its leg was wounded, but it had not lost its strength, so the leg and the tail went in through the window in no time.
As far as I was concerned it made no difference. No, this was actually better for me.
The instant the threat of the tail disappeared, I grabbed the outer handle of the driver's-side door.
Beyond the window that had lost its glass, the Lizard Man was flexibly bending and turning its body around.
The alarm, along with the sound of my heart, made my ears loud.
SKRAAK!
Did it think I had come right up to its nose for it? The bastard put force into its arms and launched its upper body forward as if jumping.
Fling. Me opening the car door, counting one second in my head, and slamming it shut with all my strength was what came next.
SKRAAAAK!
Have you ever been caught between a car door and the car body? I have not. But even without having experienced it, I knew perfectly well it would hurt.
The Lizard Man's neck and arm were caught between the car door and the body.
Naturally the bastard thrashed violently, and my strength could not crush it down in one go.
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!
Then it was simply a matter of opening it slightly and crushing down again with my whole body weight behind it.
In any case the Lizard Man's balance was collapsed at its worst right now. Its threatening tail was trapped inside the car, and in this posture and at this angle its arm had trouble reaching me. And even if it did reach, putting force behind it was difficult.
"AAAAAH!"
HSS! HISSS!
Every time I pulled the car door back lightly and then drove it forward with my whole body, I felt it closing little by little.
The thudding driven into my ears, whether it came from my body striking the car door, or from the Lizard Man's death struggle, or was the mad beating of my heart, I could not even tell.
BEE-SLAM-EEP! It was simply loud, BEE-SLAM-EEP! it was just loud.
CRRRUNCH!
Then at some point the resistance lessened. The car door had not closed perfectly, but the Lizard Man's movement had stopped entirely.
"Haah, hah."
The moment I realized it, I stepped back, breathing roughly. The tension that had reached its limit made my legs buckle for a moment.
My heart felt ready to burst.
'......It's not over yet!'
But the situation had not concluded yet. I hurriedly checked my surroundings.
Were there more Lizard Hounds and Lizard Men? Had they spotted me?
Even amid my labored breathing, my eyes instinctively sought out every place that needed looking at.
The tension had only made each moment feel like an eternity; objectively it had been a fight that took place over a very short span, so no additional enemies were approaching yet. Or were there?
HISSSSS!
Amid the alarms, a very faint presence made itself felt.
It was not the sound of something approaching to target me. It was the sound of the bastards going into buildings, or darting between the cars, continuing their human hunt.
'......Running along the road or the sidewalk would only raise the odds of running into a Lizard Hound.'
In that case, taking shelter inside a building outright would be one method.
After all, it was confirmed that the Otherworld Creatures of this Sudden Dimensional Gate were Lizard Men and Lizard Hounds, and neither of them had the ability to bring down a building.
At the very least they had neither the power to clear a high-rise in one go nor the technique to kill every person hiding floor by floor. If I just evaded the Lizard Hounds' sense of smell and the Lizard Men's field of vision well, I could unexpectedly allow myself to hope for survival.
'On top of that...... Gongju City is close to Mount Gyeryong, where the Hwadam Army's command headquarters is. The army will be dispatched within an hour at the very latest.......'
In any case I only need to reach the waiting point before eight tomorrow morning. So holding out here for one or two hours was no particular problem.
Rather than moving in a hurry, securing survival for certain was the right call.
So I scanned my surroundings quickly. I avoided buildings that seemed to be occupied by Lizard Men, and I also avoided open spaces where there would be no answer if a Lizard Hound tracked me by scent.
By process of elimination, what remained was a building that looked like it housed a lot of offices.
"Hh."
Steadying my breath, I moved stealthily.
Whether the Lizard Men poured out of the Sudden Dimensional Gate were not so numerous after all, or whether they had scattered too far apart for their human hunt, I encountered no enemies on the way.
Legs that felt as though they might give out at any moment passed through the small glass door beside the revolving door.
'If I formally belong to the Hwadam Army, will I be dealing with this sort of thing every single day.......'
The first things I checked were the marble floor spread out before me and the floor directory mounted on the wall ahead. Perhaps I had chosen the building correctly, because there was no sign of blood.
My steps sought out the emergency stairwell. My judgment was that there was no time to wait for an elevator in a lobby where an enemy might arrive at any moment.
"......I have a long way to go."
But the dizzying height of the stairs felt like a reflection of my present circumstances. It was a little daunting.
"Ha......."
Would a situation like this change a great deal if I obtained a Phantasm? But by then, in proportion to the power I gained, I would face enemies more threatening and more formidable than Lizard Men.
So I would have to keep striving, and I would have to fight endlessly against the fear called death. Just as I had a moment ago.
'Even so, I can't give up on enlisting in the Hwadam Army.'
Does not enlisting in the Hwadam Army make you safe from crises? It would have been nice if it did, but regrettably reality was not like that. Just now I was plainly a civilian and I still got unlucky enough to be caught in a Sudden Dimensional Gate.
"......Hard as it is, I have to live. I have to survive."
Yes, this was a world where bad luck could put you face to face with a Sudden Dimensional Gate. It was not something you could avoid just because you were afraid.
〚......I just did not want to die.〛
All at once, a scene from the original overlaid itself on the glossy marble stairs. It was the scene where Ya-hwi answers, with difficulty, Seong-gwon's question about how he felt when he killed people.
〚I do not know the reason I have to live, but even so I did not want to die.〛
Isn't it strange? The psychology of wondering whether there is any reason to survive this desperately and yet not wanting to die. That utterly contradictory feeling.
〚The lowest sort of human, am I not? Killing others and yet not wanting to die myself.〛
But I understand the original Ya-hwi's heart. I could not do otherwise.
Ya-hwi and I both lived lives with death always right before our eyes. Ya-hwi, who had been in a criminal's palm from the moment he became aware of life, and I, who had a heart that could stop at any time from the moment I was born. Both of us were in the position of having death approach before we could properly enjoy life.
〚But even so, I did want to live. That is all it is.〛
In the end, in the end that is what it is.
Ya-hwi and I both wanted to live. But neither I nor Ya-hwi got to live.
In my case because my feeble heart finally stopped. In Ya-hwi's case because the wrongs he had committed in the past caught him by the ankle.
"......This time I'm going to survive a long time for certain, do everything I want to do, and then die."
But unlike 'Ya-hwi,' who never received a next chance, I received one. And from a being who is probably 'Ya-hwi,' at that.
'I have the knowledge my previous life gave me, my body is sound, and I even have what I presume to be talent. Talent that can kill a Lizard Man with practically bare hands, at that.'
Therefore there was only one thing I could do.
'This alone makes me hugely advantaged over other people, so what is there that I can't do from here on? If I just put in the effort I'll survive somehow, so what is it that I can't do?'
I strive. I strive tirelessly and I survive. Being hard or being frightening could not serve as a reason to hesitate.
Even that was life. It was a chance someone had given me.
'Even feeling that it's grueling is something I can only do because I'm alive.'
With this much grasped in my hands, there was no reason not to go further.
My legs climbed the stairs with effort.
HISSS?
"......Ah, quit your bullshit."
But why is there a Lizard Man on the top floor of the building? There wasn't a trace of one in the stairwell, so how on earth did it get up here?
SHAAAAA!
"Argh!!"
Round two was, once again, a death match.
And one taking place on the eleventh floor of a building.
***
Hong Seong-hwa was a soldier belonging to the Hwadam Army [和談軍].
And the Hwadam Army she belonged to differed considerably in role from the ordinary army, navy, and air force. Their principal enemy was not fellow humans but Dimensional Gates and Otherworld Creatures.
"Black Rabbit Team, Safflower. Target point reached. Beginning suppression."
Fighting Otherworld Creatures with a human body was an extremely arduous business. Therefore every member of the Hwadam Army had formed a contract with a Phantasm.
"Kkwangcheori! Devour them!"
GROOOAR!
Among them, the Phantasm Hong Seong-hwa had contracted with was none other than the Kkwangcheori. The Kkwangcheori that is said to drag hail, or thunder, or drought along behind it.
Resembling an ox and a horse, yet being neither a true ox nor a true horse. A being that matched no beast breathing and living in the 'ordinary' world came down together with hail.
The vehicles that intermittently filled the six-lane road were crushed under its hooves, and its enormous maw yawned open and snatched up a lizard that walked on two legs.
RATATAT! RATATAT!
Hong Seong-hwa leapt down from the Kkwangcheori's back and pulled her gun's trigger. The assault rifle, set to three-round burst, spat out bullets in sequence.
A wolf that had been about to lunge at her dropped in a heap.
"Black Rabbit Team, Gardenia. Target point reached!"
"Black Rabbit Team, Hemp. Target point reached."
"Black Rabbit Team, Ramie. Target point reached."
One after another her subordinates arrived in turn. They were people capable of moving at high speed using Phantasms, as she was.
"Hemp! Search!"
The most important figure among them was Hemp. Under Gardenia's escort, Hemp called the Phantasm he had contracted with.
"Eung-ryeom, Eung-ryeom. Before your secret rings out through the bamboo grove, lend me your ears."
Hemp's ears lengthened like a donkey's in an instant. Perk. His ears swiveled this way and that, listening to the sounds from every direction.
"Building 5, eleventh floor. Building 8, first floor. Building 13......."
For smooth execution of the operation, they had assigned a number to each building while moving in. Hong Seong-hwa let the Kkwangcheori loose to devour the Lizard Men on the road to its heart's content, and sent hand signals to her squad members.
WHUP-WHUP-WHUP-WHUP!
The sound of a helicopter came from far off. Inside it were subordinates who, while lacking the ability to move quickly as she did, had the ability to fight.
"Gardenia, search alongside Hemp and suppress the road! Ramie, we secure the buildings! Forces joining later are to suppress the buildings in reverse order."
「Roger!」
The talk that had already passed by hand signal, she repeated once more over the radio.
Distributing roles like flowing water, Hong Seong-hwa sought out the nearest building said to hold a Lizard Man.
"Kkwangcheori!"
She had already been told it was on the eleventh floor. That said, walking up eleven floors was out of the question.
The moment Hong Seong-hwa's call dropped, the Kkwangcheori seized her and shot up into the sky.
"Keep devouring them!"
GROOOAR!
Having hauled her up to the height of the eleventh floor, the Kkwangcheori flung her straight at the building. Hong Seong-hwa's legs smashed through the reinforced glass and she entered the building.
Amid the scattering shards of glass, she took a breakfall and immediately leveled her muzzle at the presence she felt.
"Haah...... a person......?"
But she could not fire right away.
Astonishingly, the Lizard Man had already been subdued. By someone who had crushed it flat using a cabinet and a desk.
Eyes glittering like molten gold caught in her field of view with unusual clarity. They were eyes of a color so vivid that even Hong Seong-hwa, who had passed through long battlefields, was momentarily overwhelmed.
"A soldier...... are you a soldier? Did you come to rescue me?"
......Is it a human? Ah, right. It is a human.
Hong Seong-hwa hurriedly lowered her muzzle and took stock of the situation.
The frosted glass panes, presumed to have served to separate the corridor from the office, had shattered to pieces and lost their meaning.
And the inside of the office thus exposed was nothing short of a shitshow. She did not know how it had been fought, but it was enough for her to roughly picture that there had been an extremely hard fight.
"Building 5. Injured civilian secured."
「Confirmed. Is it critical?」
But...... hard fight or not, is it even possible for a civilian to subdue a Lizard Man one on one?
Hong Seong-hwa's gaze turned to the survivor once more.
The yellow eyes were the first thing she saw this time too, and the youthful face lodged in her perception second. The Swiss Army knife in his hand and the finely torn clothes were third.
Truly, to an astonishing degree, he had no injuries visible to the naked eye. That held even accounting for the thick clothing making wounded areas hard to see.
Almost no smell of blood came off him. If anything, the smell came from the corpses killed earlier.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Uh, no."
Asking just in case yielded the same result.
"......Minor injuries."
「Confirmed.」
The more she looked, the more questions piled up, but there was no time now to be seized by such musings and waste it.
She stepped on the glass fragments strewn across the floor and entered the office.
"Turn your eyes away."
"......."
Even if it was an Otherworld Creature, there was nothing good about watching a living thing die. At her recommendation the civilian dutifully turned his head.
BANG! A single bullet sent the still-living Lizard Man to the underworld.
"Building 5 suppression complete. Moving out."
All she had done was land the last hit, but for now this building was clear. Hong Seong-hwa turned to go back down.
"Um, sorry to interrupt you on duty, but should I just stay here?"
"......The smell of blood is bad, so wait on a lower floor. A rescue team will come soon."
Then, wait. When her foot reached the emergency exit door, Hong Seong-hwa turned her head back.
"Name?"
"......Uh, Ya-hwi. Ya, hwi. It's a single-character given name."
......With ability at that level, no matter how low his Phantasm Aptitude is, it seems he could serve in the Hwadam Army. If she made an offer, would he consider it?
Hong Seong-hwa, a Meritorious Major General of whom only three existed in the entire Hwadam Army, carved his name into her head and ran down the stairs.
Along with a resolve to at least broach the subject once the battle was over.